Warner Bros. has apologized after the official Barbie Movie account responded to a Papenheimer meme with an image of the atomic bomb.
Some photos show Margot Robbie sporting a mushroom cloud hairstyle. Barbie Movie’s official account replied: “This Ken is a stylist”.
Barbie is set to hit theaters in Japan on Aug. 11, five days after the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
#NoBarbenheimer has been trending.
Other meme images that have angered Japanese social media users include one showing Cillian Murphy, who plays Robert Oppenheimer, known as the “father of the atomic bomb”, carrying Ms Robbie on her shoulders through a burning city. The official account of Barbie Movie replied: “This will be a summer worth remembering”.
In a statement posted on Warner Bros. Japan’s own Barbie account, the company said, “The official account at the film’s ‘Barbie’ US headquarters reacted to a social media post by a ‘Pappenheimer’ fan.” Pity.”
A day later, its US headquarters told the BBC: “Warner Bros. regrets recent insensitive social media engagement. The studio sincerely apologizes.”
Twitter, which recently changed its name to X, has since added a community note to the original post to emphasize the historical context of the atomic bombings in Japan.
The recorded death toll is an estimate, but it is thought that about 140,000 of Hiroshima’s population of 350,000 were killed in the August 6, 1945 bombing. Three days later, Nagasaki was bombed, killing at least 74,000 people.
Over the next few years, the radiation released by the bombs killed thousands of people from radiation sickness.
“My grandfather was in Hiroshima days before the atomic bomb was dropped. Many of those who died under the mushroom cloud were children of Barbie age,” one social media user posted.
A spokesman for the city of Hiroshima told the BBC that 78 years on, the city would “continue to work hard to spread knowledge and understanding of the physical and psychological effects of the nuclear bomb, and the hope of nuclear disarmament among survivors of the bomb”.
Oppenheimer’s distributor has not yet announced a Japanese release date for the film.
